of the dust on the stove in her agitation.

"There! now see what you have done! You two make more work than you do; and just see how you have stood the broom in the corner, instead of hanging it up, as I have told you a hundred times to do. It is more trouble to teach you than it is to do things myself. I wonder if you have just got through sweeping; such slow poking works, I could have done it twice over by this time. I don't see why I should be so tormented; other people have girls that amount to something." Mrs. Murray, down in her heart, believed there were no girls in all the kingdom like hers. Florence was accustomed to this sort of talk, and yet it hurt her sensitive, affectionate nature every time. The blue eyes took on no indignant light; instead, they filled with tears, which irritated her mother still more, and she said, with increased sharpness:

"There, go away. You are made of too fine stuff for common purposes; getting so touchy that not a word can be said to you."

Counting time by her mother's calendar, Florence had been a long time doing a little, but her nature was different from her mother's, all her movements were gentle. She had been reverently following her mother's directions. Her untiring patience ferreted dust out of every little corner where it had lodged in the furniture; she had mounted the step-ladder and dusted the pictures, had cleaned and polished all the little ornaments. True, she lingered a moment over a book of engravings, and to kiss a little statuette of "Prayer," but she thought she had done it all so nicely, and a little word of praise would have made her so happy. It was hard, when she had done her best, to have only fault-findings.

At a very critical stage of affairs in the pastry-making, Nettie Blynn knocked at the side door. She only wanted to see Maggie just a minute about the Christmas entertainment. Maggie set down a half-beaten dish of eggs and ran. The minute lengthened into many more, and the girls talked and talked, as girls will, forgetting all about time. When Margaret returned to the kitchen she found her mother in a perfect fever of haste, and poor Florence trying to go two or three ways at once.

"Now, Margaret," her mother began, "I might just as well depend upon the wind as you! drop everything and run the minute you are called. That is just as much sense as Nettie Blynn has, running to the neighbours Saturday morning, and staying like that, when I have so much to do. You don't seem to care whether you help me or not."

"Why, mother, how could I help it?" Margaret answered with spirit. "I didn't ask her to come, and I couldn't tell her to go away. Saturday morning is as good as any other time to her; she doesn't have to work all day Saturday, and how should she know that I do?"

Just here the front door-bell gave a malicious ting-a-ling. Mrs. Allan, an old friend who lived several miles out of town, had just a few minutes before train time; she was sure there was no one in the world she wanted to see so much as Mrs. Murray, and Mrs. Murray was just as sure that she herself wanted to see nobody just then, but there was no help for it. She washed the dough from her hands, and saying to Margaret, as she hurriedly left the kitchen:

"Finish that pie, and watch the fire; don't let that cake burn, nor the cranberries."

Alas! for Margaret. She became so absorbed in rolling the upper crust of the mince pie, and in trying to cut a beautiful pine-tree on it, that she forgot all about the fire, and the cake, and the cranberries. An odour, not savoury, came from the stove. Margaret rushed out, but it was too late; the cranberries sent up a dense black smoke, and were burned fast to the new porcelain kettle, and, horrors! on opening the oven door, the fruit-cake was a sight to behold—as black as a hat, and an ominous-looking valley in the centre of it!

"Flo! go tell mother to come here quick!" screamed Margaret.
"Everything has gone to destruction."

Any housekeeper can well imagine what a person, who did not hold firm rule over nerve and tongue would say under such aggravations. Although her mother's words stung like scorpions, Margaret did not attempt to excuse herself this time, for she felt keenly that she had been guilty of great neglect, and she would have told her mother so if the bitter words had not made her hard and sullen. The longer her mother talked, the less she felt that she cared for the consequences of her fault. This Saturday's work was unusual, not only because Christmas was near at hand, but an old aunt of Mrs. Murray's was coming from Philadelphia to make a visit. She had not visited her niece in many years. She also used to be a model housekeeper, and Mrs. Murray was anxious that everything should appear to the best advantage. At last the toil and strife of that day was over, the work was all done up and the girls sought their own room.

"Maggie," said Florence, "what do you suppose Aunt Deborah will bring us for Christmas presents?" Florence braided her golden locks as she talked, her face cheerful as usual. The trials of that day had left no mark on her sunny face. Not so with Maggie; the frown was still on her forehead, and she flung herself on the lounge in a despairing sort of way as she answered, "I'm sure I don't know nor care either, whether I ever get another present in my life."

"Why, Maggie! What's the matter?"

"The matter is that I am tired of this awful life. I work, work, and be scolded all the time. I wish Aunt Deborah was in Jericho, or anybody else that is coming to make more work for us. I could stand the work, though, but I can't stand scolding all the time. Mother hasn't said a pleasant word to me to-day."

"Sh—h!" said Florence. "Mother is sick and nervous. Don't you think if—if you wouldn't provoke mother so much it would be better? And then maybe"—Florence was almost afraid to speak her next thought—"don't you think you answer back a good deal sometimes?"

"There! you just hush up," said Margaret. "I guess you needn't set up for a lecturer, too; two years younger than I am, you are taking a good deal upon yourself, I should say. I'm nervous, too. Young folks are called cross, but older ones always called nervous, when they are cross. I wish I could go off somewhere. I'd go anywhere to get away from home, for it's just dreadful. Mother don't care for me one bit. She don't scold anybody else as she does me. When I go over to Mrs. Blynn's it just makes me sick. Nettie and her mother are just like two sisters. They sit under the drop-light with their fancy-work and talk, or Nettie plays her new pieces over for her mother. I could play as well as Nettie if I had time to practice, but mother don't seem to care anything at all about my music. We might keep a girl like other people. Father is able to. I think it is too bad."

"Oh, don't Mag! Don't say any more," said Florence. "It makes me shiver to hear you talk so. You know what it says about honouring parents. I'm sure something dreadful will happen to you. You will drop right down dead, maybe, or just think how you would feel if mother should die after you've talked so. Oh, Maggie," she said timidly, "if you only were a Christian, now, how it would help you."